


Redial

by Loversarelosers



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, Regret, Sad, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 09:09:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14808416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loversarelosers/pseuds/Loversarelosers
Summary: The five times Tony called Steve and the one time Steve called Tony.(Set post- CACW and not Infinity War compliant)





	Redial

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. So this happened. Oops.

The five times Tony called Steve and the one time Steve called Tony. 

  
  
  


1.

 

He pushes. He pushes so hard that sometimes he doesn’t even know why he bothers, because Steve doesn’t let up. Every time Tony call he receives the same voicemail, over and over.

 

“ _ Tony, stop calling. Please.”   _ Steve’s voice is toneless yet somehow sympathetic. He doesn’t want  _ sympathy,  _ he wants Steve to pick up the goddamn phone. The ominous beeping tone rings in his ears, incessantly. He still doesn’t stop calling, even when it’s almost four A.M. and he’s not drunk anymore. He hears Steve’s voice for the fiftieth time and nearly cries, because he now knows why he calls. He calls, waiting for an answer from the man who always had something to say to him. The answer to what question he doesn’t know. 

 

The sun rises over the horizon as he redials.

  
  


2.

 

He plans. Every call is precisely times now, unlike his fits of manic calling weeks earlier. He calls Steve once in the morning and twice at night, but his fingers itch to call more,  _ more.  _ The voicemail has changed, and so has the contact for Steve. The profile picture is black, and the caller ID reads  _ Rogers _ instead of  _ Captain.  _

 

The voicemail grates on his ears now, so badly that he calls only once a day.

“ _ Tony, you should stop calling.”  _ The condescending tone is weary, and every time Tony hears it he wants to punch Steve fucking Rogers in the face. Jesus, the man couldn’t be more insulting. Doesn’t Rogers know that he would stop calling if he could? He still calls once a day, even though he wouldn’t have a clue what to say if Steve actually picked up the phone. 

 

He hears the voicemail again and throws his phone across the room, watching it splinter and shatter into a million pieces.

  
  


3.

 

He leaves a voicemail. For the first time, in fact. It’s in the early morning hours and he hasn’t slept enough to make rational decisions, but to hell with it, right? He takes what has to be his fourth shot of whiskey and stares at the new contact.  _ Captain Dickhead.  _ To his drunken mind it’s hilarious. He presses the call button and waits as the phone rings. 

 

The new voicemail makes him laugh hysterically even though he knows it’s not very funny.

“ _ Come on, Tony, Stop. Now. I’m sorry.”  _

He laughs and laughs until he cries and then he cries more. The whiskey staining his clothes smells strong and pungent, and the custom made diamond ring is on the floor somewhere. He wants to chuck it off the balcony and into the void. As the beeps sound, he doesn’t hang up. With an air of hysteria he speaks. 

 

“You fucker. You...Barnes and you fucked me over. What do you want me to call you now, if it’s not Captain? Well, you got what you wanted, asshole.” He sobers up pretty quick, and his voice sounds nothing if not serious and bitter. “Pepper said no. She did and you,  _ you.  _ I don’t even feel bad about it cause I’m thinking of  _ you. Fuck.”  _

 

He presses the end call button before he can say anything worse.

  
  


4.

 

He calls secretly. It’s a Friday at four in the afternoon and Peter is coming over soon. The kid’s boundless energy makes him smile a lot more than he has in a while. Peter doesn’t know about the calling, he’s sure, so he doesn’t want to worry the kid’s brain out. He ducks behind a pillar in the lab as F.R.I.D.A.Y.  notifies him that Peter is about to arrive. The contact has changed, again. The ID reads  _ Don’t call him, Don’t.  _ as a not so friendly reminder. 

 

He calls anyway, and for a second he thinks Steve might pick up. He stares at the screen, hearing Peter’s footsteps approaching the lab. His lip is bloody from the nervous nibbling of his teeth. 

 

“ _ Tony, Hi. If it’s really urgent, you know how to contact me. Otherwise, stop.” _ The voicemail is all business, all class and righteousness and Tony wants to scream  _ FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU  _ over and over until his lungs no longer work. But he doesn’t. The voicemail is silent but he doesn’t hear the beeps. He’s about to hang up when a single word comes through and he almost collapses on the spot. “ _ Please.” _ Steve sounds like he’s on the verge of crying and Tony can practically feel his heart shatter. 

 

The beeps sound as Tony stands there like a statue. He ends the call and it feels so final, so permanent. He’s not going to cause Steve that pain. At one time, maybe, he wanted to, but he’s not so bitter anymore. 

 

He hides his shaking hands behind his back as Peter bounds into the room, a million-watt grin on his face. 

  
  
  


5.

 

He doesn’t really call anymore, he doesn’t need to. It used to be a crushing weight on his chest, but now the thought of not calling seems simply  _ fine.  _ He wonders if he’s become complacent or if he’s just  _ happy  _ now. He hopes it’s the latter. 

 

He feels numb sometimes, and he knows that people worry. Peter worries, even, and Tony can’t bear Peter worrying about anything, though the kid has more weight on his shoulders than most adults ever will. He doesn’t want to be the cause of any of that weight, though, so he keeps his numbness out of Peter’s sight. 

 

He only calls this time, he tries to remind himself, because he’s a grown ass adult and he wants to actually talk to Steven. He does, not just listen to the voicemail. His standards are depressingly low if all he wants is to hear a voicemail, Jesus. He isn’t disappointed when he hears the rings end and the click of the voicemail start, but he does feel emptier. 

 

“ _ Tony, please. Don’t call anymore _ .”The voice sounds weary, tired, and lonely. But somehow, he can’t bring himself to care as much as he wants to. This is what Steve chose, and Tony is moving on, rebuilding, healing. He doesn’t need this. 

  
  


He hears the beeps a final time, before ending the call and pressing  _ Delete Contact.  _

  
  
  


+1

  
  


It’s very late on a Tuesday when he finds his phone buzzing with and  _ UNKNOWN CALLER  _ ID flashing on the screen. He pauses, hands still for once, and stares at the phone.  _ No one  _ calls this phone, and nobody can get the number, it’s cyber-encrypted. This phone is only used to call… well. He hasn’t called Steve Rogers in almost a year now. Three hundred and twelve days, to be exact, not that he’s counting(he has a calendar). 

 

The phone rings again, and he can’t just  _ ignore  _ it, can he? Steve is calling  _ him  _ , Tony fucking Stark, for the first time in almost two years. 

 

Suddenly he’s angry. Honestly, who does Steve think he is, to call after all that’s happened? Tony owes him nothing. Not a single goddamn word. 

 

He picks up the phone anyway, if only in spite. His hands are shaking as the phone is cradled, still buzzing.

 

His finger hits the button before he can even register it, and he puts the phone to his mouth to say something,  _ anything.  _ But before he can, a voice leaks through the other end. 

 

“Tony?”

 

And he snaps. 

 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I think I made it pretty clear by not calling in over a year now, that I don't want to talk. Just by the way, Rhodey is better. Not that you care, obviously. I heard about your little rescue plan. Say hi to the gang, Steven, but I have to go. Don’t call this number again.” His voice is harsh and rough and if his hands shake, well, that’s no one’s business. He’s about to hang up when a voice cuts through the line, breathy and small. 

 

Steve is laughing. Fuck, Steve is laughing on the other side and it’s breathy and soft and sounds painful but he doesn’t want to know what that means. His fingers hover over the end call button, but he doesn’t press it,  _ he can’t  _ press it. He just stands there, in the middle of his lab at nearly midnight, lost and listening to Steve laugh. The laughing, though, is not sweet like it used to be. It’s almost hysterical and it’s so very soft and sad.

 

He hears a sob through the other side of the line and he freezes.

 

“Tony-I-I…” Steve breaks off, and Tony hears a harsh fit of coughing. It sounds awful, wet and painful. He’s still now, because he has an inkling of what this is and he desperately doesn’t want it to be true. He  _ knows  _ but he doesn’t want to think that because maybe,  _ maybe,  _ that’s not what’s going on. 

 

“Tony...you don’t...owe...me...anything,” Steve says softly, so slowly that his words seem like drips of honey. His voice is breathy and Tony swears he can hear Steve wince. 

 

“But...please...I just want...to talk,” the voice breaks. Tony has about a million smartass retorts to shove in Steve’s face but he doesn’t, he can’t, cause he knows what this is. Suddenly he’s not moving at all, FRIDAY silently tracing the signal of the call before the words even come out of his mouth. Actually, no words come out of his mouth, because he’s still as frozen as a statue.

 

Steve coughs again and groans a bit, and that snaps him into action. He’s at his desk now, tracing the signal, pinpointing the cell, triangulating the location… He just needs time, give him time. 

 

“Tony…I…I’m sorry...for everything...that happened...I...am…” and Tony can feel his heart break. He still can’t say anything, nothing. His voice doesn’t come out of his throat.

 

Suddenly he has the signal, and...is that right? The signal is coming from Brooklyn, not too far from his complex. He’s in action before Steve can speak again, readying the jet for immediate travel. He out the door, the small, quick gasps on the other end jarring him.

 

“But...Tony...I know why I...did it...and you...do too...Please...if I hurt you…forgive me...please...Tony... _ please. It hurts.”  _ Steve sobs and Tony almost does too. He can feel the tears on his face as the jet takes off into the sky, and he wipes them away quickly. He doesn’t need to cry, he needs to help Steve. He doesn’t speak, he won’t, because he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what to say to Steve to make all of this better. 

 

He looks through the window and startles at the site that meets his eyes. Brooklyn is a battleground. Large explosions are being diffused and it seems like...Holy fuck, fuck. He wonders why he wasn’t contacted, but he’s pretty sure it had something to do with the Accords. He curses every single goddamn alien in the universe because Steve is hurt, and Steve is…he won’t say it. It might not be true, Steve could be a drama queen, honestly. The pressing feeling in his chest is too strong, he knows. But he pays no attention, he’s only focused on Steve, get to Steve. 

 

The plane lands and he’s off like a shot even before the door is completely open. 

The devastation before his eyes is massive and he wonders how he didn’t know this was going on. The streets are deserted and destroyed, ruins of buildings are bathed in blood and  _ bodies  _ litter the ground. He can’t breathe for a second. 

 

He sees part of the red, white, and blue suit. He sees what looks like the corner of a flag and he is tempted to collapse on the spot at the little piece of Kevlar fabric, soaked in red,  _ red,  _ lying in the ground. But he doesn’t, he just breathes. He breathes and listens to the silent phone, all alone in the middle of a dead street. 

 

Then he sees a body. It takes him a minute to realize who it is, but then he’s running at full speed to fall to his knees beside  _ Bucky.  _ Every thought about hating the man disappears as he stares at the body in front of him. Because it is only a  _ body.  _ Bucky’s long hair is matted with blood and his eyes stare, unblinking, at the darkening sky. His body seems in a contortion act, limbs twisted every which way, gashes spilling red, bright red, on the asphalt below him. Bucky’s lips are blue. 

 

Tony feels nauseous, looking at this man who used to be-well, definitely not a friend, but a  _ comrade,  _ at least. Steve’s best friend.  _ Steve.  _ He presses the phone to his ear again, praying over the body of Bucky that Steve is alive. Please, grant him that. 

 

The line is silent, and his lips are dry. He’s afraid that if he opens his mouth now, he’s either going to cry or vomit. Maybe both. Just as he’s about to scream out ‘CAPTAIN!’ as loud as he can, he hears ragged breathing on the end. 

 

“Steven Rogers, don’t you fucking die on me,” he bites, jumping up, a last, numb, lingering gaze on the man in front of him. 

 

“Tony...I’m...sorry…” the voice says so softly. But it’s enough. It’s enough for FRIDAY to speak into his earpiece, telling him that the captain was only a few yards away. He’s about to run there, get to Steve, but he looks at Bucky’s unblinking face and stops. He kneels by Bucky again, and he doesn’t know what to say. Steve would know, but- anyway, he needs to do something. He pauses for a minute, then gently closes Bucky’s eyes. 

 

Then he jumps up again, dashing past the wreckage of the street to where Steve has to be. He  _ has  _ to be, because Tony really thinks he’s going to throw up if Steve isn’t there. Well, he might throw up anyway, but that’s beside the point. He climbs over a wrecked car and almost trips over a window.

 

Then he sees Steve. He’s in the Captain America stealth suit, but the red, white, and blue is mostly red now. He’s covered in red, dripping red, lying in puddles of red, and for a second, Tony fears it might be too late. But then Steve makes a small keening sound and he  _ runs _ , he bites back his cries and he dashes over to Steve’s side.

 

“You idiot,” he says, trying to make contact with Steve’s eyes. He tries to asses the damage, and he thinks that it’s probably coming from- shit. He stops trying to press anything, because when he pulls back the torso of the suit, Steve’s chest is a giant gaping wound, a mess of burns and cuts and awful bruising, bullet wounds embedded in his torso and abdomen, his whole body shuddering with pain. 

 

“Steve?” He asks, more harshly this time, tapping at Steve’s cheeks, the thin cheekbones and the pale face giving the air of a dead man. Steve’s eyes roll to meet him, finally, and he tries to take a breath to speak but just shudders, blood trickling down the side of his mouth. Tony presses down on one of the more vigorously bleeding wounds but Steve grips his hand weekly and pushes it off. Tony almost sobs, but rearranges himself so Steve’s between his legs, his head on Tony’s thigh.

 

It hits Tony hard, the fact that he can’t do anything. He wants to do something, anything, to keep this jackass from dying on him. But now? There isn’t anything he can do, and there isn’t anything Steve  _ wants  _ him to do but hold him tight. He grips Steve's hand and tries to smile.

 

“You’re...crying…” Steve manages, gasping for air and trying to wipe the tears off Tony’s face. He doesn’t say anything, just lets Rogers look at him for a while as he bleeds dry.

 

“Yeah.” He manages to speak after a while, tears still leaking from his eyes but a smile on his face. It’s a sad smile. It’s a hopeless smile, but that’s all he has to offer. “Yeah, Cap, it’s been a while.”

 

Steve is silent but stares at Tony with a dreamlike gaze in his eyes, and Tony can feel Steve burning with fever at the rate his system’s working to heal him. It won’t be enough, Tony knows, but he can hold Steve. He can make it better, he has to hold on to that. He cradles Steve’s head again, making eye contact.

 

“You know,” he starts to ramble, and Steve just smiles a little. “You know, I asked Pepper to marry me.” The smile slips a little on Steve’s face. “And she said no. And I wasn’t even unhappy. That’s fucked. It is, but when she said no, I was so relieved. And all I thought about was you.” The dreamy smile is back on Steve’s face. Tony can feel Steve slipping fast. As if a sudden relegation came over the Captain, he gripped Tony’s arm tight, trying to breathe enough to speak.

 

“I-I’m...sorry, Tony...sorry,” he says, blood on his lips, and Tony actually sobs this time, hard. He runs his fingers through Steve’s bloody hair and shakes his head. He tries to convey how much regret he holds deep inside in a single touch, and he hopes Steve understands. 

 

He doesn’t want to lose anyone else. He’s lost too much, he swears on god. He won’t be burying another body any time soon or so help him, that would be the end. He rocks back and forth on his knees, Steve’s fair skin slowly becoming paler. Tony wants to say something,  _ needs  _ to say the right thing, because Steve looks terrified. He looks like the young man he is, a man out of his time and now, a man out of time. He doesn’t know the right thing to say, so he says the first thing in his head. 

 

“I love you.” He hopes it’s enough, he desperately hopes it’s right, and he hopes Steve will say something and stay a while longer. Steve’s face breaks into a gorgeous, easy smile. His blue eyes are glassy and his cheeks hollow, his clean-shaven jawline too sharp, and his lips are bloody, but he’s perfect. He’s  _ perfect.  _

 

When he kisses Steve, it’s impulsive and needy. It’s the last kiss, he thinks. The last kiss he’s ever going to give Steven fucking Rogers, who died before Tony could even kiss him properly, in a church with their friends watching, like how it was supposed to be. He tastes metallic blood on Steve’s lips as draws away.  _ God,  _ if he could bottle that smile… He settles for keeping it in his memory forever. 

 

Steve just smiles at him for a minute, Tony pleading into the blond hair, soft and sweet. He mutters and pleads and hopes that Steve knows, because he has no idea what this is himself. 

 

“Tony…” he manages to choke out. Tony’s head turns sharply at the voice, again, as Steve begs for his attention. Steve is fading fast now, eyes becoming more unfocused and dammit, Tony just wants this all to dissolve, another one of his Virtual Reality experiments gone wrong. But it doesn’t, and it won’t, do he locks eyes with the man he once called his friend and once called his enemy, and he waits. 

 

“Tony…love...you…to…” he whispers, a hint of a sad smile still present. Tony watches numbly as Steve’s eyes lose all focus and his body untenses, the slack smile falling off his face. 

 

He doesn’t register any of it, though. He just knows that there’s blood on him, warm and wet, and that it’s Steve’s, and Steve…

 

Steve’s blue eyes are still open. Tony slips a hand over Steve’s face and closes them, then, he leans back against a wrecked car and breaks. The man of iron cries, and it’s pathetic, he thinks. It’s ironic, and pathetic, and he deserves this. He deserves to let go, because the one man he let in is gone, and it’s going to be up to Tony to bury his godforsaken body. 

 

He cries, then, for himself. For the things he has to do and the promises he’s about to break. He cries for Steve, someone who was a hero in a life. He cries for the times that they fought. He cries for the times that they were friends. He cries for the love that he has lost and that he can never gain, because the man he loved is dead on the pavement in Brooklyn. He cries for the nights they spent smiling and the time they spent fighting. He cries for the fear he felt of falling again, of trusting again. He cries because he knows that a part of him still hates Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, even though it’s pathetic to hate a dead man. He cries because he knows that he will never get over this loss. He cries because this was his closure. He cries because he never picked up the goddamn phone and called in all seriousness. He cries because Steve never once picked up. He cries and he cries and he cries, and he begs himself to stop crying, but he can’t. There is so much to break over, and everything has suddenly broken again. 

  
  


He sits there, on the pavement, covered in Captain America’s blood, and he cries. 

  
  
  



End file.
